The Line of Light
Ginny let de Fleury take her arm - his hand was rough, and felt like canvas, but it was warm – and he was pulling at her, so they were running, along the line of the Senate Room portraits.
His grip broke as she struggled to keep up, but she kept running, following his nude figure, past all the other naked figures, who turned to look at her. Guillaume looked very beautiful, she decided, even as she worried how she was going to find Chloe.
With sudden decision, she bent down and dropped the sword on the floor with a clang. “Thanks, Matthew,” she shouted over her shoulder.
She had a hand free, she realised, to hold the waistcoat closed, in fact both hands to help cover herself as she ran. She realised the wand was fizzing. Ahead, she could see de Fleury twisting lithely sideways to slip through a vertical band of light, and she followed him.
They were in a landscape now, of hills and mountains, with a ruined house in the distance. There were small painted figures in the distance, turning to look at them.
She realised the air didn’t feel like the outside. If she’d closed her eyes, she could have been in the Senate Room. Her fingers tightened on Undine’s wand, and as she did so the light above her darkened: The clouds were moving, turning grey, then black, and she was blinded by a flash of light, then deafened by thunder. She could hear the distant figures shout complaints, and they were running for cover, as heavy rain beat down.
De Fleury stopped, turned and grinned at her. He was careless of the rain pouring down him, his nakedness. “That’s you, I think,” he called as she hurried up to him. “The weather. Can you make it sunny instead?”
“I don’t know how,” she admitted, gasping as the rain pouring down her face ran into her mouth.
He laughed, joyously. “Then we get wet. One more landscape, then we are inside,” he said. He turned and ran, and she followed.
Her clothes were wet through now, the trousers sticking to her. She was briefly tempted to take them off, and run as de Fleury was, but if he knew where he was going they would soon be in sight of students.
“Here!” he shouted, twisting once more in front of a vertical band of light, then disappearing. She kept her eyes firmly on the rectangle of light, determined not to lose him. She twisted and slid through the gap. Here, it was dry and sunny, but the wand in her hand was still fizzing, and when she looked up clouds were gathering.
She could see de Fleury up ahead, and she knew where she was now. This was Beauxbatons valley, and in front of her was Undine’s New Hogwarts. They must be in the painting that Gosse had created, to be a gateway into Hogwarts from the other schools.
Another blinding flash, and immediately a clap of thunder, and it was pouring with rain. There were no painted figures in sight. Gosse had painted this in a hurry, she remembered, or perhaps it would have had pupils and teachers moving around the drawbridge and portcullis.
To her left, where the new Durmstrang should have been, climbing the hillside, was only the canvas window into reality outside. She could see a handful of huge figures staring in at her, and she was glad of her clothes, wet and transparent though they were.
De Fleury was pounding across the drawbridge, the falling rain teeming around him, and she was struggling to keep up. She was flagging as she ran beneath the portcullis, which loomed over her head, threateningly. Inside, it was darker than the real entrance hall, and instead of the doors into the Great Hall, the wall in front of them had a series of bright lines.
“Where?” de Fleury asked. “Where do you need to go?” He smelled of rain, somehow, and man. His helmet had gone, she realised, and his straw-coloured hair was still wet, but as she looked at him, it dried until it became his usual handsome blond haystack. Even in the seriousness of the moment, his mouth quirked as he looked down at her, and her hand came up to cover herself.
She shook her head. “No idea,” she replied. She broke eye contact, hurried forward, choose a slit at random and dodged through it.
She was in a painting she distantly remembered, of a group of dark-clad women around a table. They looked up at her in placid surprise. To her right was brightness, the canvas window into the real world. More huge figures stood there. Hogwarts students, she decided, ones she didn’t recognise.
“Where’s Professor McGonagall?” she called to them.
The figures flinched in surprise. One recovered enough to shout back, too loudly. “She’s on the fourth floor!” the girl called, pointing upwards.
Ginny turned, uncertainly, and bumped into de Fleury, embarrassing her. She was too conscious of him near her, his warmth, his bronzed skin. She could hear suppressed laughter from the figures around the table, and through the canvas, and felt her face heat. “Where… Where are we now?”
“Second floor,” called a boy. “This is the second floor!”
“Hi Ginny!” called another boy, cheekily. “Give us a wave!”
“You need to go up!” called another, would-be helpful.
Ginny, annoyed now, dodged around de Fleury and headed for the band of light they’d come in by.
Here they were in the entrance hall again. Ginny could see the portcullis, leading out into daylight. She turned. There were five bands of light here. One for each floor, she decided. She made for the fourth slot, and slipped through.
She was in water, in waves higher than her. She could taste the salt. A seascape… To her left, only yards away, was a sailing ship, pitching through the waves. But almost immediately her still-fizzing wand caused a bolt of lightning, and she saw it hit the ship. The thunder rolled around her as she watched in horror: A mast twisted and leaned forward, then cascaded into the sea on top of her, in a tangle of sails and rope, and she was sinking.
Now there was an arm around her, a strangely rough hand on her bare stomach, and she was being squeezed against warmth. De Fleury, she realised. His legs were moving powerfully as he swam upwards towards the surface. She was overwhelmingly conscious of his body moving against hers, with only insubstantial gauze dividing their nakedness, as if they were being intimate, here in a painting, with countless eyes upon them.
They reached the surface, and she could gasp for breath and normality. De Fleury still clasped her tightly, urging her towards the far side of the painting.
The wind was building, threshing the waves into foam. Ahead of her she could see the next band of light. She made herself break free of him, and swim, but it was a huge effort to cross those last few yards. She reached out, into dryness…
She was indoors now, next to a tall table, with huge pieces of fruit laid across it. She was gasping, and staggered over to lean against the table as she recovered. She could hear de Fleury’s gasps too, but she dared not meet his eyes; She didn’t want to see his knowing expression, she dreaded letting him see her own, and guessing her thoughts.
To her left was the canvas window, and she could see figures hurrying closer to stare at them. They were gesticulating.
“Keep going!” one of them shouted. “This way!” She tried to ignore de Fleury as she hitched her wet clothes around herself, turned and hurried onwards.
The next painting contained dancing couples. Ginny couldn’t remember seeing this painting before. They were outside, at a country fair.
“Woo!” shouted someone – a girl’s voice. “Hey! Don’t run off, handsome!” Ginny could see heads turning, fixing on de Fleury. His glance swivelled to meet hers, his eyebrows twitching in surprise and amusement. She had to drag her eyes away from his. Stupid, she told herself. He was saving my life. Nothing more.
“Maria!” cried someone else, in shocked tones. “Not appropriate!”
“On the way back?” pleaded the first voice. But Ginny set her teeth, tried to ignore all this, and ran.
She had to thread her way between the dancers, all of whom now were looking at the two of them in amazement. One red-faced, beery individual reached out a hand to her waistcoat and pulled it off one of her shoulders, briefly exposing her, and laughed loudly. She turned angrily and brought up Undine’s wand, but before she could do anything, the man’s partner – equally red-faced and broadly-built – rounded on him and hit him with her fist. He spiralled backwards, falling heavily against other dancers, as rain came out of nowhere and soaked them all. The crowd scattered, leaving Ginny’s attacker sprawled on the ground, and his partner roundly kicking him in the ribs. Ginny hurried on, briefly meeting de Fleury’s mocking eyes as she did so.
The next painting was emptier, calmer.
“Oh, no,” said Ginny.
“Aha!” called an extremely short knight in full armour. “You are here for your challenge, of course. Now, listen carefully. All my daughters are blonde, except two, all my daughters are redheads, except… except… What happened to your clothes?”
“It’s all right, Sir Cadogan…” Ginny began.
“Are you a maiden in distress? You sir! Are you the cad who brought her to this?” he demanded of de Fleury. “We must fight, for her honour! And where are your clothes, sir?”
“Look, it’s OK,” Ginny said, wearily. She could see his diminutive horse nearby, grazing peacefully. Sir Cadogan trotted briskly over to his steed and dragged at his sword, which was hanging from the pony’s saddle. He struggled until it came free, then fell over backwards – the sword was considerably longer than he.
“Ginny!” called McGonagall’s voice behind her. “We’d nearly given up on you!”
Ginny turned quickly. She could see McGonagall looming above her, with other shadows beside her.
“You scurvy cur!” cried Sir Cadogan, clambering to his feet. “You blaggard! On guard!”
“Sorry,” Ginny called back. “It took ages to get here. And I had to get a wand.”
“A wand?” echoed McGonagall, brightening slightly. “Good! And who’s this?”
“Oh!” said Ginny. “This is Guillaume. He’s…” She couldn’t find any explanations she felt would justify being accompanied by a naked man. De Fleury was eyeing Sir Cadogan with contempt.
“A friend?” inquired McGonagall.
“Sort of,” admitted Ginny, her mind’s eye recalling her painted self’s heaving chest after she’d caught her with de Fleury. She put her hand on de Fleury’s arm in case he tried to fight Sir Cadogan.
“I was a Beauxbatons headmaster,” said Guillaume, stiffly, freeing his arm. “Guillaume de Fleury at your service.”
“He’s been a lot of help,” said Ginny lamely. “He knew where to go.”
“A damned foreigner, on English soil!” cried Sir Cadogan.
She realised it was raining once more, but her clothes couldn’t get any wetter. Sir Cadogan’s pony whinnied unhappily, shook its head and trotted out of the painting. To Ginny’s relief, Sir Cadogan dropped his sword to follow his mare, shouting.
“Why is it raining?” McGonagall asked, perplexed.
“That’s the wand,” Ginny explained, lifting it. “It’s not mine, you see. Not holly.”
Out of the corner of her eye she watched Guillaume saunter through the rain to pick up Sir Cadogan’s sword.
“So… What’s happening?” Ginny asked. There was rain trickling from her hair, down her forehead, into her eyes and mouth.
“Let’s move next door,” McGonagall proposed. “The next painting…”
The next painting was a carpenter’s workshop. The carpenter was never present, Ginny remembered, looking around at the table and chair, the tools on the walls, the wood shavings around her feet. But at least it was dry.
“Mr de…” began McGonagall, hesitantly. Ginny could see her eyeing Guillaume uncertainly through the canvas window.
De Fleury divined her meaning, but didn’t take offence, as Ginny feared. Instead he dropped the sword carelessly onto the table and flung himself into the chair behind it. He raised his bare feet casually onto the table, but at least he was figleafed now. From the canvas window, anyhow, Ginny decided, although she could still see all she could have wished. But still she avoided his eyes.
“Hmm,” said McGonagall, still looking at him. Does she fancy him too? Ginny asked herself, entertained despite the seriousness of the situation. Her clothes were still sopping wet. In irritation she removed the annoyingly clinging trousers and wrung them out, wetting the wood shavings around her. De Fleury caught her eye and blew her a kiss.
“Hmm,” said McGonagall once more, avoiding looking anywhere now. “You got my message, Ginny,” she began. “Chloe was seen in this painting, which was empty as you see now, apart from… yourselves… Unfortunately, Caroline was also in the castle, and I was supervising her, but Professor Flitwick was here, observing Chloe.” She indicated the small figure standing next to her.
Oops, thought Ginny. She hurriedly pulled the trousers back on. They seemed strangely dry now.
“Langenberg came through here,” confirmed Professor Flitwick, his voice squeakier than usual. “And I was following her along the gallery. But I realised when I reached the next painting that Chloe was nowhere to be seen.”
“So what is the next painting?” Ginny asked.
“Come and see,” instructed McGonagall, moving away.
Ginny walked across the painting and turned sideways to slip through the narrow gap. As she did so, she frowned at de Fleury, nodding to imply he should stay where he was. He smiled, crookedly, and shrugged. He seemed to know he was distracting her.
She only slowly recognised this painting. A study, with a desk and chair, and behind them a wall of books. The chair was occupied.
“Professor Binns!” she said in surprise.
Binns was looking uncertain and disturbed. He didn’t stand to greet her, but fidgeted in his chair. “Hello, Wheatley,” he said, uncomfortably. “This is a strange business!”
“Didn’t you see anything?” she asked.
“No! Well,” he added. “I saw another champion enter here earlier, but…”
“Caroline Moore-Hexham,” confirmed McGonagall, through the canvas window. “She came this way earlier, while I was observing her.”
“But no sign of Chloe?” asked Ginny. “Or any noise?”
“It’s always noisy here,” said Binns, fretfully. “It’s very hard when I’m trying to teach…” Ginny worried that she was going to have to listen to a lecture on the subject, but he merely shook his head and sighed.
“So where did she go?” Ginny asked. She turned to look at Professor Flitwick. “Are you sure she didn’t go the other way? Out the other side?”
The normally confident Charms professor looked pale and concerned. “There’s no way through the next painting,” he said. “As you’ll see. But I was convinced that I saw her pass into this painting, but not emerge here. The carpenter’s shop is empty, we’ve interviewed Sir Cadogan and the dancers beyond, and they saw nothing.”
“If they were dancing,” pointed out McGonagall. “They might not have noticed.”
Professor Flitwick looked annoyed at this point. “But I’m almost sure…”
Tactfully, Ginny walked back into the previous painting, of the workshop. To her surprise, she found that de Fleury was no longer alone. He was still lounging naked in the workshop chair, but there were two girls with him, smirking with laughter, shoving each other as they wiggled flirtatiously in front of him. She realised they must be dancers, from next door.
They fell silent as Ginny appeared and glared at them. Their pretty faces clouded mutinously, and they casually drifted away, back into their own painting.
“Did I interrupt?” Ginny asked coldly.
“Just sightseers,” replied de Fleury, casually. Amused.
“I’m sure,” she replied, frostily. She turned away from him with decision and frowned around her. The workshop had no doors she could see. She walked behind de Fleury and reached out to touch the wall. It felt solid. She moved along the wall, to the little window there, but that was small and didn’t open.
Beneath the wood shavings on the floor were floorboards. Ginny knelt, and swept the shavings with her hand. Her knees were hurting already, but she made herself check the entire floor, apart from around where de Fleury was sitting, but she could see no trace of a trapdoor.
“If you don’t mind…” she said gruffly to de Fleury, trying not to look at him.
He stood. “Let me help,” he said, starting to kneel.
“No!” she said loudly. He laughed and backed away, so she could shove the chair out of the way and check the floor there.
Nothing. De Fleury was standing with his arms crossed, surveying the room, as she got to her feet. It was hard not to stare at him as she did so. She looked upwards, her face flaming, but instead of the wood ceiling she expected to see there was only darkness.
She passed back into the next painting, where Professor Binns was sitting gloomily at his desk. But there was no point in searching here: Even Professor Binns couldn’t have missed a kidnapping in his own painting.
“And you were here the whole time?” she asked him.
He looked affronted. “Of course,” he said. “This is my place.”
She could only shrug. She slid into the next painting along. She was in sudden bright sunlight, with dazzling blue and white all around her, and nothing beneath her feet. A cloudscape. “Whoa!” she said, and stepped instinctively backwards.
She could see Professor Flitwick looking in through the canvas window.
“Couldn’t Chloe have fallen?” she called. She could see nothing beneath her except sky, which made her giddy. He shook his head, and gestured to Professor Sinistra, who was standing next to him. “Aurora was here specifically to prevent that.”
“No-one came this way,” said Professor Sinistra. “I’m sure of it.”
Above Ginny was the sun, huge and hot, and in front of it a small flapping figure, like a moth at a candle, yet the figure was human.
She pointed. “That’s not her?” she asked. “Up there?”
“No,” said Professor Sinistra. “That’s Icarus. An ancient wizard.”
Ginny shook her head in bemusement, and turned back, to the band of light that led into the painted study.
She jumped as a peal of thunder exploded behind her. She looked over her shoulder, and the sky was full of threatening clouds now, rolling before the gathering wind. She thought she could see the flying figure, spiralling downwards towards the bottom of the painting, but she wasn’t sure.
Guiltily, Ginny hurried back into the next painting, past Binns, and into the next. She froze when she heard shouts, and a scuffle. What…? She relaxed slightly when she realised the noise was coming from outside, through the painted windows into the real world.
Then everything happened at once. Professor McGonagall’s voice, calling. Ginny swung round to look for her, but then immediately a shadowy figure appeared to her right, from the next painting. She twisted back, and her heart tried to stop.
A tall, grey figure was looming towards her. He was dressed in a long dark cloak. In one grey hand was a crooked wand. But the face… He was bald, his skin was entirely grey, and his nose was entirely missing.
She screamed and brought up her wand…
“You really thought Ragge was Voldemort?” Sandrin Krum asked. He was kneeling on the other side of the tall figure sprawled on the floor of the workshop.
“Yes,” said Ginny, in curt embarrassment. “Grey skin. No hair. No nose.”
“We were in a hurry,” Sandrin explained. “So Ragge just drew himself in charcoal. And then he couldn’t get his nose right,” he added in annoyance. “Or his hair. So he rubbed them out, and wanted to try again, but I told him we had to hurry.”
Sandrin’s own appearance was also rudimentary. His mouth was a mere gash, his eyes at different heights, and his legs were strange. And he seemed oddly narrow. But his crooked eyes dropped far too often to where her breasts peeped out from the sides of her jacket as she bent over Ragge.
“We’d best leave him,” she said grumpily. “I’ve no idea how long a Stunning spell lasts here. And what were you doing in here anyway?”
“I came here to rescue you,” said Sandrin, shortly.
“Rescue me?” Ginny asked in surprised annoyance, but he didn’t respond.
She climbed awkwardly to her feet, determined to cover herself from his gaze as she did so. She wished de Fleury would intervene, and deal with Sandrin somehow, but he continued to lounge in his chair, a knowing smile playing on those perfectly painted lips.
“Is he all right, Ginny?” McGonagall asked behind her.
Ginny turned in annoyance. “I think so,” she said. “He seems fine, just… Well, I don’t see how Chloe could have just disappeared.”
Professor Flitwick stiffened. “I assure you that’s what I saw!” he said.
“Sorry, Professor,” Ginny said, with a sigh. “I didn’t mean that. I just don’t understand.”
“There’s nothing else on that edge of the painting?” McGonagall asked.
“I’ve looked…” said Ginny, but she walked over to the edge of the workshop once more, and Sandrin followed her. Here there was only darkness, apart from the narrow rectangle of light into Professor Binns’s portrait. “No…”
She started to turn away, bumping annoyingly into Sandrin this time, but something made her hesitate. What had she seen?
She turned and squinted once more. Blackness, and the band of light…
“What can you see?” Sandrin breathed down her ear. She batted him away, as if he were a plaguing insect.
“Nothing. Except…”
Except the sides of the rectangle were different. One edge appeared to be blurred. She peered more closely. Krum moved behind her, shadowing her from the window to the outside, and she was about to snarl at him when she realised the darkness meant she could see something she’d missed before.
Close to the rear edge of the band of light was another much narrower, much dimmer, line of light.
She stepped pointedly around Sandrin and hurried across the workshop to examine the band of light there, but this was a single band of bright light. And when she crossed back again, the dim line of light was still there. She hadn’t imagined it.
“What is it?” hissed Sandrin.
What was different about Binns’s painting? She remembered hanging it here, when Gosse brought it back from Old Hogwarts. Had she done something wrong? Had Gosse, possibly? She wished he was here, to ask. He’d spent ages on it, hadn’t he?
He’d painted it twice.
She’d assumed, she realised, that Gosse had started entirely again, with a new canvas, but why would he? He would just wash the painting out with a solid colour, then start again. So there were two paintings here.
What did that mean?
She held her breath, turned sideways, and before she slid through the gap, she pushed herself sideways, towards the back edge of the painting, then heaved herself forward with all her might.
The sensation was strange. She could feel the roughness of the canvas dragging at her skin, and the threads, and the cool slickness of the paint, as she squeezed into darkness…
No, she could see a flickering light now - a long lit candlestick, resting on something: A desk. The room was small, with only the desk and a chair, and a narrow bookshelf behind it. There was no canvas window, like the other paintings.
On the floor, in front of the desk, was a slumped figure, face down. A girl with long dark hair. Ginny stepped towards her, in relief coupled with fear. It was definitely Chloe Langenberg. She could see a dark streak on her face. Blood…
A figure appeared out of the gloom. He was tall, with a handsome, chiselled face. He had something raised in one hand, like a weapon, and his face was twisted with fear.
Ginny brought up Undine’s wand. “Who are you?” she demanded loudly.
He gaped at her, then let his hand drop slowly. He peered at her in amazement. “I know you,” he said, in puzzlement. And his face was familiar too, a face from years ago. And then she had it…
“You’re Anthony Goldstein,” she whispered, in amazement. “What are you doing here?”
“I escaped,” he said. He nodded over Ginny’s shoulder. “She helped me.”